Abstract
There is an unresolved but fundamental ‘anthropological’ tension in the liberal emancipatory promise. It is emblematically embodied in two, almost contradictory, statements by James Buchanan: “Man wants freedom to become the man he wants to become” (Buchanan 1979), but man is “afraid to be free” (Buchanan 2005). Buchanan was aware that there was a need for a renewed and rekindled “soul of classical liberalism” (2000), but he had to equally and bitterly admit that reflection on the problem of fear of freedom was still a real “lacuna in classical liberalism”, if not a true “failure” of liberal thought. This paper offers three proposals for a critical-constructive reinterpretation of the tensions in Buchanan's thought. First, if the emancipatory promise of liberalism aspires to be potentially ‘universal,’ and if liberalism is also a form of “adultism” (McCloskey 2020), a renewed liberalism that lives up to that promise will have to be attractive especially to those who do not want to become adults, otherwise liberalism risks being nothing more than a preachy or elitist, paternalistic or compassionate discourse toward them. Second, in order to avoid these possible drifts, we need to better specify the meanings and relationship between ‘fear’ and ‘freedom,’ if only to understand the nature of that anthropological tension and whether and how it can be ‘loosened’. Third, it provides some insights into a better understanding of whether and how we can move from fear of freedom to freedom from fear.